White hooves on shorthorns?

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aj

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Where did the white hoofs come from genetically? The Irish bloodlines. Appendix program? Double stuff? Does anyone remember if say Double Stuff had white hooves? Dividend......white hooves? Are there any other breeds beside the Shorthorns that have the soft white hooves? Gelbvieh? Maine?  Simmental? I noticed I had a calf that had white hooves and both parents had dark hooves. Is this something the 50k test could figure out. Not sure it matters but there must be genetic basis to the phenomenom.
 

RSL Cattle Co.

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Are you serious??? I rather like my cattle having functional, sound feet rather than caring about what colour their hooves are!
 

aj

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Is a white hoove preferable then? I don't know. I was told they were a softer material. I haven't paid much attention to it but it seemed like the white hooves are in conjunction with a wilder color pattern. Seems like I started noticing them about the time Doublestuff became popular. Thats why I wondered if it was an Irish deal. Might be a Milking Shorthorn deal.......I don't know.
 

justintime

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I have often wondered the same thing. Animals with white hooves usually have more foot problems. We have had lots of full Irish cattle over the years and I don't remember any that had white hooves. There are 3 Irish cows here now and all have very dark hooves. Both Dividend and Improver had dark hooves as well. I do think that there was more of a tendency for the Irish strain of Shorthorns to have hooves crack and to have sore feet.
Personally, I would never buy a herd bull with white hooves, as I have just seen too many cattle with white hooves that need to be trimmed regularly. Even if the bull had everything else right about him, I would walk away from him because of the color of his hooves,. Hoof trimming is not something I like to have to do... ever. I can't remember the last animal in our herd that had white hooves, probably because I try to select against it. As it has been said, quality starts at the ground up!
I have seen white hooves in many breeds here. We had Hereford cattle with white hooves and some Simmentals as well. It was when we were raising these breeds that I really started to pay attention to the color of the hooves. We had a couple of Swiss imported Simmental cows that required to have feet trimmed at least once a year, just in order to walk properly. After a few times of doing this, you gain a huge disrespect for them. There also were lots of white hooves in our Charolais herd, and I really tried to find Charolais herd sires that had darker hooves. That is not an easy task sometimes.
I am not sure why white hooves are so much softer than dark hooves. White hooves in wet conditions fall apart much faster than darker hooves. I have never seen white hooves in Angus cattle but some Angus lines have plenty of different foot issues as well.
I have no idea why this has not become a much bigger concern in this industry. I think it is pretty well known that white hooves are inferior to dark hooves, but I see people still paying little attention to selecting against white hooves. I know I have some commercial bull buyers who would walk away from buying a very good bull because of the color of his hooves.
 

justintime

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edmun2010 said:
I would imagine that white hooves=weak hooves is an old wives tale, just as it is in horses.  Many horse people do still believe in it, even though it's been well documented to be false. 
http://www.horsechannel.com/horse-health/horse-hoof-myth-26038.aspx

I don't think it is an old wives tale at all in cattle. If you have trimmed many hooves, white colored hooves are much softer in composition than a darker colored hoof. I have seen more cattle with white hooves that required a foot trimming than I care to think about. I am pretty well convinced from my own experience, that this is a true fact, and even if research was to prove me wrong, I would never use a bull with lighter colored hooves. I have just seen far too many problems with them.  I would suggest that anyone who has not made up their mind about this to talk with a larger rancher with several hundred cows. I have never met a larger rancher who would ever consider buying herd bulls with whiter hooves. I just can't understand why this has never become a bigger selection issue in all breeds.

When we were operating our feedlot, we used to feed quite a few bulls out for a custom client. One winter we had 850 bulls in the lot. I was surprised how many Charolais bulls came in that were less than 3 years of age, whose feet were so bad that they could hardly walk to the feed bunk. Almost every one of them had white hooves. Same thing with the Simmentals that came in. The best feet were on the Horned Herefords and the black Angus. There were lots of Red Angus that had their toes on the front feet that crossed, and many of them were younger bulls. Some of these were bad enough that if they were not going to slaughter, they would have required to have their feet trimmed before they could have ever been turned out in breeding pastures.
 

aj

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I better double check and make sure the cow was dark hooved.......but is interesting to me is that a dark hoof bred to a dark hoof could produce a white hoof. Kinda like a heterozygous polled bred to a heterozygous polled throws a horned calf 25% of the time.
 

justintime

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I sometimes see hooves that are both colors... dark and whiter, and usually it is in stripes on the hooves. It seems to me that in Shorthorns the lighter the coat color the lighter the hoof color, but this is not a 100% for sure thing. I have seen white bulls with dark hooves, but these animals also usually have red hair around their muzzles and/or in their ears.
 

RankeCattleCo

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Almost every single Holstein has white or striped hooves like JIT mentioned. Have to be trimmed at least once a year, and ours pasture 8 months out of the year for 8 hours a day and are on concrete for at least an hour a day year-round.
 

ctroidl

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I one had a herford x angus steer who's front hooves were tiger striped and back hooves were pure white. I have also noticed that a horse with a white sock will usually have a white hoof.
 
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